


paths that lead home

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cultural Differences, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 17:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10391925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: in which there are feelings that each party is too uncertain to act on, a proposal is made, a proposal is accepted, and eventually everyone realizes thator,dwarf marriage customs are different than hobbit marriage customs, Bilbo accidentally becomes Consort Under the Mountain, and it all works out in the end





	

The king was dying. That was what everyone said, what everyone had been saying ever since they carried him back in the battlefield. He had been too weak, even, to attend the funerals of Kili and Fili, and that by itself was enough to start people whispering about how the line of Durin was over.

Bilbo had gone to the funeral, had cried over Fili and Kili laid out on their stone plinths in ceremony befitting princes, and then he had returned to Thorin’s bedside, where Thorin was just barely clinging to life, let alone consciousness.

His eyes were closed when Bilbo sat down, but he tried to push himself up onto his elbows, his eyelids fluttering open.

“Bilbo,” he said, as if surprised that he was still there.

“I’m here, Thorin,” Bilbo said, softly.

“Bilbo,” said Thorin again, like a revelation, his face brightening, softening. “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Bilbo agreed. “As long as you want me here.”

“I’ll always,” Thorin paused, coughing, and Bilbo started forward, worriedly. “I’ll always want you here.”

“Don’t tell me things like that until you’re fully conscious,” said Bilbo, brusquely, sitting back up.

“I mean it,” said Thorin, his voice rough, strained. “I meant it when I gave you that mithril mail, and I mean it now.”

“Save your strength,” said Bilbo. “You should be resting.”

“No,” Thorin said, still trying to sit upright, his arms shaking from the effort of holding his weight. “I need to say this. I am grateful, Bilbo, for all you have done for me, with me. That you have stayed with me throughout everything. That you accepted my gift…”

“As a matter of fact,” said Bilbo, “I have something that I’d like to give to you.” He pulled the acorn from the inner pocket of his vest. “I had meant to plant this at Bag End, but now I think it would be more fitting for you to plant it here, in Erebor.”

He held out the acorn to Thorin, who folded his hand over Bilbo’s, his grasp so much weaker than it normally was. “Thank you,” he said. “I accept gratefully, and I will do everything in my power to honor what you have given me.”

The whole conversation had an air of ceremony, and Bilbo cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Don’t say anything you don’t mean,” he said. “Maybe you need to rest more.”

“I know what I’m saying,” Thorin insisted, still clutching Bilbo’s hand. “And I mean every word of it.” He strained even further, trying to sit up without the aid of his elbows, stretching to touch Bilbo’s forehead against his own but not quite able to reach. Bilbo leaned down, touching his forehead to Thorin’s, his hand pressing against the back of Thorin’s head, holding them together like they would fall apart if they stopped touching. It was Dwarvish thing, Bilbo knew, thought he know the exact significance of the gesture, but it was something he’d seen members of the company do with each other at important moments, whether to honor their time together or to reaffirm their commitment to each other. Thorin’s eyes were closed, and he was breathing deeply, as though he was drawing strength from where he and Bilbo were in contact with each other. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.” And then he opened his eyes, only for them to roll back into head as he slumped back against his pillows.

“Thorin?” Bilbo said, alarmed. “Thorin, are you…”

Silence was his only answer, but Thorin’s chest still rose and fell, and he still felt Thorin’s breath faint and warm against his palm when he held his hand to Thorin’s lips. Which wasn’t the context in which he wanted to think about Thorin’s lips, but it was likely the only context in which that would ever be appropriate. Not that it was even remotely appropriate for him to be thinking about that right now, when Thorin could be dying, and all Bilbo could think of was how much he wanted kiss him, when Kili and Fili were laying dead, interred in stone beneath the city, and he was lucky enough to even be alive, lucky enough that Thorin had put aside feelings of personal betrayal for the sake of strategy and found it in his heart to forgive him, which was far more than Bilbo had ever expected or asked for. He had done what he had thought was right to save Thorin’s life, willing to sacrifice his friendship, his trust, any chance he may have had at his love, in order to save him.

“He will live,” said Gandalf, and Bilbo jumped, having not even realized that Gandalf had entered the room. “He is past the worst of his injuries, and all that he needs now is to rest.”

“Thank you,” said Bilbo, though he didn’t know whether he was thanking Gandalf, or Thorin, or any deity that would hear him.

\---

They didn’t allow Thorin to leave his bed until the fifth day, when he could keep his eyes open for longer than a few minutes at a time, and one of the first things Balin asked him about was whether or not his engagement was still on, to which he replied that Bilbo had given a gift in exchange for the betrothal gift Thorin had given to him, which meant that unless there had been some grave cultural misunderstanding, Bilbo had accepted his proposal. But he had leaned in to his forehead touch, as any dwarf would have done. And the gifts from both parties had been done before witnesses—the rest of the company the first time, Gandalf the second—so the betrothal was legally binding. It was probable that Bilbo had accepted out of pity or friendship than out of actual affection, but Thorin could live with that. His own feelings for Bilbo would not get in the way of their partnership, and despite potential cultural differences, there was no one better suited to be Consort Under the Mountain than Bilbo.

“It would seem an insult to not invite Thranduil to my formal coronation as King Under the Mountain,” he said to him, on the seventh day since the battle, while they were walking together, taking inventory of Thorin’s new—and rather ruined—palace. “Would you mind writing to him?”

Bilbo had agreed, and had also agreed to send a messenger to Bard the Bowman of Laketown and Elrond, Lord of Rivendell, though neither of them had much love lost between either of them and Thorin. He had agreed that they were more likely to respond favorably if the request came from him rather than from Thorin.

“Thank you,” Thorin said,grasping his hand. “I would not be able to do this without you.”

Bilbo looked faintly alarmed, but he nodded and shook Thorin’s hand, though he withdrew his own shortly afterward, and the surprise and discomfort on his face made Thorin resolve to never take his hand again unless Bilbo was the own initiating the contact. It was fine. He could be married to someone who considered him no more than a friend. What he needed was a partner and a consort, not a husband, not a lover, not even a close friend. If this was to be his life he could accept that, as even this was far more than he ever thought he would receive or prove himself worthy of.

“It’s nothing,” said Bilbo finally, even though it was very much not nothing. “I would hardly be a very good friend if I didn’t help when my friends are in need.”

“I see,” said Thorin diplomatically, at once elated that they were friends once again and disappointed at the implied rejection of the idea that their marriage might be anything other than an alliance of convenience.

“Do you?” Bilbo said. “That’s good, because I don’t. Not that I have a problem with doing any of this work, mind you, because I don’t, but why am I the one writing to Thranduil and handling the seating arrangements for the state dinners and carrying the keys to vaults that I’m pretty sure no one outside the royal line is supposed to know about, which I only know because Balin told me to read every book on etiquette and protocol you own?” He paused for breath. “That got away from me. The point is, Thorin, that I don’t understand why it isn’t someone else doing all this. Someone more qualified, someone in the actual official position to be doing what I’m figuring out as I go along as a favor to a friend.”

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Thorin said, considering putting his hand on Bilbo’s shoulder and thinking better of it, given how worked up he was. “There is no one I trust more who knows the first thing about diplomacy or compromise, and as for someone in an official position, what position could be more suited than that of my consort?”

“Your what,” Bilbo said, and then, after a moment of sputtering, “Are you proposing to me? Because if you are you’ve picked a terribly unromantic way to go about it, and Hobbits pride themselves on not being fanciful but I might have to reject you on principal all the same.”

Thorin felt as though he was missing something obvious, and thought it best if they went over everything from the beginning. “I proposed to you weeks ago,” he said. “Before the battle. You accepted, and then you sealed the agreement with a betrothal gift of your own.”

“A what?” said Bilbo. “You must be mistaken, or I’m mistaken, someone has definitely made a mistake, maybe even several mistakes.”

“Our betrothal gifts,” Thorin said again. “The acorn, and the shirt of mithril. Exchanged before witnesses, along with declarations of commitment.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said. “I didn’t realize…”

“Did none of your books on etiquette cover proposals?” Thorin said. “Did you really not know?”

“I… they did, and it seems obvious now that you’ve said it, but I didn’t want to assume.”

“So when you gave me the acorn,” Thorin said, “what did you mean by it?”

“I just… I meant what I said about it. I meant to give you something that was important to me, just as you are important to me.”

“And if you had known the implications,” said Thorin, already trying to remember the steps for breaking a betrothal just in case that was what Bilbo wanted, “would you still have done it?”

Bilbo was silent for a moment, and Thorin was just about to offer to have their engagement ended when he finally said, slowly, softly, “I believe I would have, yes.”

“Then I can take this to mean that you do not wish to end our betrothal?” said Thorin. “Though I apologize for the misunderstanding-”

“You’re apologizing?” Bilbo said, smiling impishly. “Now I really have seen everything.”

“I know how much you have always wished to return home,” Thorin said, fairly certain that Bilbo was making fun of him and also fairly certain that he deserved it, but also certain that there was more that needed to be said. “And I don’t want some stubborn sense of obligation to a misunderstood arrangement to prevent you from doing so.”

“Thorin,” Bilbo said, clasping Thorin’s hands in his own. “I’m not staying because of duty, or because I feel I owe you anything. I’m staying because I want to. I miss the Shire, of course I do, but if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that you can give your heart to multiple places at once. You have more than one home, missing something doesn’t mean you aren’t happy where you are, and sometimes it’s not about the place, necessarily, so much as the people in it.”

“Erebor can be your home for as long as you want it to be,” said Thorin. “Even if you don’t wish to be married to me, you still have a place here. Though,” he continued hopefully, “I do hope you want to marry me.”

“I do, Thorin, of course I do,” Bilbo said. He stepped closer, squeezing his hands more tightly. “And not just because you’d be hopeless at writing letters and being polite to elves and communicating clearly when you’re trying to propose to someone and the entire organizational part of running a kingdom.” He was smiling fondly as he said it, and he was right. Thorin had learned kingship on the battlefield, and the kind of decisions he knew how to make were those of a warrior, not a host, and the kind of conversations he knew how to have were about strategy rather than feelings. “But also because you’re like no one I’ve ever met and I’ve come to care about you very much, and I would very much be honored to stay by your side as long as I live.”

“And I would be honored to have you,” said Thorin, lifting Bilbo’s hands to his lips and brushing a kiss across his knuckles, “as long as I live as well.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from The Last Goodbye from the BotFa credits because every other song I have for these two is angsty as hell so like. this is what you get
> 
> Originally there was gonna be more Political Intrigue but I am lazy and proper political intrigue takes lots of time and effort and patience so have some nice easily resolved miscommunication instead


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